Two Stephen Sondheim musicals are currently in Broadway’s Top 5 highest grossing shows. Who says he’s not bankable?
Sweeney & Merrily in the $2 million club
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber was already packing them in at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, regularly grossing over $2 million a week; and now the London revival of Merrily We Roll Along starring Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff, and Lindsay Mendez at the Hudson Theatre, directed by Maria Friedman, has joined them.
Both are part of that elusive $2 million a week club, with Merrily joining the Top 5 list that includes regulars The Lion King, Hamilton, Wicked, and Sweeney Todd.
Merrily We Roll Along has mainly achieved the accolade by going high with prices: a top price ticket goes for $499. The lead producer on the show is UK-based Sonia Friedman, whose production company sits within ATG – who own the theatre.
ATG swapped out their leader this week, ditching the Brit Mark Cornell and taking on American tourism-and-tech guy Ted Stimpson. ATG recently bought five Broadway theatres, taking their total to 7 (ATG own or operate 64 in total – most of which are in London and the UK). So it seems like they plan to get serious about maximising revenues and making Broadway work for them, which is probably good for West End-to-Broadway transfers, and producers/creators within their stable – namely Sonia Friedman, Jamie Lloyd and their in-house ATG Productions.
Their mega-hit production of Cabaret is already ear-marked for their August Wilson Theatre, and it is almost impossible to image a scenario where Jamie Lloyd’s Sunset Boulevard with Nicole Scherzinger does not find an ATG-Broadway home. The question is where?
Groban & Ashford to exit Sweeney
In other Sondheim news with week, Sweeney has announced that its two stars – Annaleigh Ashford and Josh Groban – are set to leave this January.
Their 46 week run will complete on 14 January 2024, with a new cast yet to be announced.
The pair have proved a huge draw for audiences and box-office gold for producers, so all eyes are on who they replace them with.
The show also stars Gaten Matarazzo (Stranger Things) as Tobias, Ruthie Ann Miles (The King and I) as Beggar Woman, Daniel Yearwood (Hamilton) as Anthony, Maria Bilbao (On Your Feet!) as Johanna, Jamie Jackson (The Last Ship) as Judge Turpin, John Rapson (Les Misérables) as Beadle Bamford, and Nicholas Christopher (Hamilton) as Pirelli.
Here We Are – Again
Keeping the Sondheim theme, his last work, Here We Are, currently playing at the Off-Broadway The Shed in New York, is extending its run by a few weeks.
It was meant to end on 7 January 2024, but will now play to 21 January.
The cast includes our very own Tracie Bennett, alongside Francois Battiste, Bobby Cannavale, Micaela Diamond, Amber Gray, Jin Ha, Rachel Bay Jones, Denis O’Hare, Steven Pasquale, David Hyde Pierce and Jeremy Shamos.
The show is inspired by Luis Buñuel’s movies The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Exterminating Angel, both set at surrealist dinner parties.
It’s unclear whether the show will have a Broadway life after it’s Off-Broadway run, or if someone plucky will bring it to London.
Old Friends to Broadway?
There are various rumours circulating that Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends – the Cameron Mackintosh-produced tribute revue to the great composer that’s currently playing at the Gielgud Theatre in London – may find its way to Broadway.
The show stars Broadway big-hitter and longtime Sondheim muse Bernadette Peters, along with Lea Salonga, Janie Dee, Joanna Riding, Clare Burt, Bonnie Langford, Jeremy Secomb, Gavin Lee, Bradley Jaden and more, all directed by Matthew Bourne.
It has proved to be a terrific show in London, getting incredible reviews from the critics, but it’s not a sell-out.
Broadway has not been short of tribute shows for Sondheim during his lifetime, but there hasn’t been a main event in New York celebrating his life since he died in November 2021. Is everyone holding off for a Cameron show?
Old Friends focuses on the Sondheim shows that Mackintosh has produced, and is very much his take on Sondheim. It will be interesting to see whether he would like that to be seen on Broadway.
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